KAT: The annulment papers are on your counter

KAT: You need to decide

KAT: Before it's too late

And finally:

CONNOR: You left your sweater

CONNOR: The blue one

CONNOR: The one you were wearing when you first learned to trust your partner

That last one breaks me.

My feet carry me back to the studio without conscious thought. It's nearly midnight now, the rain still falling, and I need... something. Answers. Peace. The ability to turn back time and never walk into that Vegas chapel.

The ability to stop loving someone knowing it’s just a matter of time before I lose them.

I let myself in with the key Madame gave me for "extra practice," and begin to dance. Alone this time. The way I've done everything since Mom died.

The way I’ve kept doing everything, because it's safer that way.

Because if you don't need anyone, no one can leave you.

"Your frame is still tense."

I whirl to find Madame Rousseau in the doorway, still in her performance costume.

"I thought you had a show tonight?"

"Finished early." She moves into the studio with that effortless grace I'll never master. "Though perhaps the better question is why my star pupil is practicing alone at midnight?"

"Couldn't sleep."

"Ah." She studies me in the mirror. "This would not have anything to do with why Monsieur Reeves left here looking like someone had stolen his favorite Porsche?”

"I did what I had to do."

"Did you?" She adjusts my arm position. "Or did you do what was safe?"

"There's nothing safe about this situation."

"L'amour is never safe." She guides me through the steps. "That is what makes it worth the risk."

"I can't risk his company. His future. Everything he's built?—"

"And what about what you have built, mon cherie?” She stops our movement. “You think I haven’t picked up anything in these last four weeks. Mon Dieu, I swear…This wall around your heart? This idea that being strong means being alone?"

"I'm not alone." But the words sound hollow. "I have my family. My work."

"Ah yes, your work." She sighs. "Always fixing everyone else's problems. Never letting anyone fix yours."

"That's not?—"

"Tell me, when you first came here, could you dance?"

I look away. "You know I couldn't."